In their ceaseless effort to convince the public that evolution is problematic,
creationists are fond of compiling lists of scientists who deny evolution. Introducing
its list, the Institute for Creation Research declares that [c]reation
scientists can now be found in literally every discipline of science, and their
numbers are increasing rapidly. The creationist ministry Answers in Genesis
(AiG) supplements its list with a roster of creationist scientists
of the past, including Georges Cuvier, William Buckland and Adam Sedgwick (who
are warily described as old-earth compromisers because they, unlike
AiG, accepted that Earth is more than 10,000 years old).

And in 2001, the Discovery Institute, the institutional home of intelligent
design creationism, placed advertisements in The New Republic,
The Weekly Standard and The New York Review of Books, signed by
a number of scientists who are skeptical of the claims for the ability
of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life
and who believe that careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian
theory should be encouraged. Innocuous as these sentiments are, the Discovery
Institutes list, like those of the Institute for Creation Research and
AiG, is nevertheless brandished by those trying to show that evolution is a
theory in crisis.

Discussing the propaganda value of such lists, advocates of evolution education
associated with the Web site www.talkdesign.org started to play with the idea
of a response. But compiling a list of the hundreds of thousands of scientists
who accept evolution would be not only tedious but also heavy-handed: it would
look as if the scientific establishment were out to squash creationism by sheer
weight of numbers. Someone suggested that it would be just as compelling and
quite a bit funnier to compile a list of scientists named Dave, say, or Chris,
who accept evolution. Matt Inlay, a graduate student in biology at the University
of California, San Diego, suggested that in honor of the late Stephen Jay Gould,
a better choice of name would be Steve. Thus Project Steve was born.

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE), for which we work, undertook
to sponsor Project Steve. We drafted a statement reading:

Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological
sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea
that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate
scientific debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is
no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection
is a major mechanism of evolution. It is scientifically inappropriate and
pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not
limited to intelligent design, to be introduced into the science
curricula of the public schools.

We circulated the statement to selected Steves, Stevens, Stephens and Stephanies
with Ph.D.s in the sciences. (We were also willing to take Estebans, Etiennes
and Istvans.) Relying on data from the Census Bureau, we calculated that approximately
1 percent of the U.S. population possesses a qualifying name, so every signatory
represents about 100 scientists.

The first few days of Project Steve were hectic. After about 10 days, the Steveometer
was at 100, the initial target; and 100 percent of the eligible Nobel laureates
 Steven Weinberg and Stephen Chu  were on board, as were a number
of geological and paleontological luminaries, including Steven M. Stanley of
Johns Hopkins. But responses were still pouring in. Shrugging our shoulders,
we decided to shoot for 200.

The signatories were gratifyingly enthusiastic: thrilled to participate
and honored to be listed, calling it quite good fun
and a great concept. Steven Semken, a geologist at Diné College
in Tsaile, Ariz., suggested that we add a reference to the importance of evolution
to the geological sciences to the statement.

Unfortunately, by then the statement was so widely circulated that it would
have been difficult to rectify our oversight. When we announced Project Steve
on the NCSE Web site, we explained that NCSEs position is that evolution
is vital to the geological sciences too; we confidently expect that the signatories
would agree if asked, but we unfortunately failed to ask.

With the Steveometer at 200, we decided to unveil Project Steve at the American
Association for the Advancement of Science annual convention in Denver, Colo.
Lawrence Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University, who was speaking
on Scientific Ignorance as a Way of Life, kindly announced Project
Steve and referred reporters to Eugenie C. Scott, NCSEs executive director,
who was sitting in the front row. The Steveometer was then  on Feb. 16,
2003  at 220; it is now at 290 and climbing.

The whimsical nature of Project Steve caught the attention of the media. Stories
appeared in the Washington Times, in the Oakland Tribune and on
the Australian Broadcasting Corporations The Science Show, which went
so far as to arrange for a male chorus to sing, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve,
in the style of Monty Pythons Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam. Numerous
articles appeared in local and college newspapers, accompanied by photographs
of Steves wearing their official Project Steve T-shirts. The scientific media
were responsive, too. Steve Mirsky wrote Bringing in the Steves
(alluding to the hymn Bringing in the Sheaves) for The Scientist.
And Project Steve was even mentioned in the Random Samples column of Science.

Project Steve is of course a parody of the lists used by creationists to try
to convince the public that evolution is shaky. But there is a serious side
to it, too: to remind the public that scientific questions are not answered
by acclamation but by scientific research, which, of course, overwhelmingly
supports evolution. But dont take our word for it. Just ask Stephen Abedon,
or Stephen Adler, or Stephen Aley, or ...

Branch
is deputy director, and Evans is network project director, of the National Center
for Science Education, a non-profit organization that defends the teaching of
evolution in the public schools. Skip Evans, whose given name is Stephen, is now
regretting his decision not to pursue a Ph.D., so that he could make the list.
E-mail: branch@ncseweb.org or evans@ncseweb.org.